Test Wells

Only one of three wells drilled recently by the Whitehall Township Authority in its search for new water supplies produced enough water to be considered as a water source. That well, located close to another authority well in Mickley Gardens, was the only one of the three that was drilled as a full producing well instead of a test well. The authority felt certain it would produce a good supply because of its proximity to a smaller producing well. However, it decided to start with test wells at the other sites, especially after it spent $20,000 to drill a full producing well at Mauch Chunk Road and Schadt Avenue last winter and found little water.

Don't worry, the Environmental Protection Agency is probably wrong, and, anyhow, Pennsylvania is not Wyoming and the gas drillers here are from reliable American companies. We will be just fine. The EPA report mentioned in the Dec. 9 Morning Call links hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for natural gas in Wyoming to contamination of drinking water with a variety of naturally occurring substances (such as methane) and chemicals (such as diesel) that do not belong there. The drilling company accuses the EPA of putting the chemicals in their test wells.

A Montgomery County judge has temporarily halted a developer from drilling test wells, a process that allegedly affected about 20 residential wells, draining dry at least nine in Marlborough Township last week. "In 18 years we've never had a problem" with well water, until now, said Sara Reading of Zeigler Road yesterday. "I'm really upset." At the request of Marlborough's attorney, Joseph J. McGrory Jr. of Norristown, Judge S. Gerald Corso issued the injunction Tuesday against the developer, Zeigler, Zeigler and Freed.

By Sarah Fulton Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | November 20, 2008

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to test roughly 800 residential wells in North Whitehall Township for possible lead contamination, officials announced to about 70 residents at the board of supervisors meeting Wednesday. The wells in the former Mohr Orchard site and neighboring orchard properties -- on more than 1,300 acres -- will be sampled and tested for various heavy metals, including lead, which has shown up in preliminary tests. The EPA action level for the area, which ranges from Kernsville to Schnecksville, is 11 parts per billion.

Some members of an advisory committee urged the Environmental Protection Agency Thursday to give them, not the media, first crack at information about proposed well drilling in Palmerton. But although EPA officials promised they'd check in with the committee more often, they were reluctant to make panel meetings the sole means of communicating with the public about the test wells. "We're a public agency, and we have to provide information when you call us," EPA spokesman David Polish said after the meeting.

Plans by the Environmental Protection Agency to dig several test wells in Palmerton appear to have been put off for a while, but borough officials are ready to fight if the agency tries to dig without permission. Borough Council last week hired the Scranton law firm of Schneider, Goffer and Hickey to file a federal injunction if the EPA starts digging without first complying with its recently passed well permit ordinance. The EPA says it's exempt from the ordinance. The law firm council hired specializes in such federal cases and will cost the borough $100 an hour with no retainer required, said council President John Neff.

The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't have to -- and doesn't intend to --adhere to a new Palmerton ordinance that requires council approval to dig wells in the borough, an agency spokesman said Monday. The EPA wants to dig test wells to check for contamination of the water supply. "We are not required to seek permits from local or state entities that would be required to do our work," said Dave Polish, EPA spokesman on the Superfund project in Palmerton. But Palmerton officials believe they have every right to restrict digging, and are ready to take the EPA to court if necessary, Borough Manager Rodger Danielson said.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced that it won't have to drill deep test wells in Palmerton to determine whether contamination from the former zinc smelting plant is moving toward the town's water supply. Instead, the agency will likely drill four additional shallow wells to determine whether the groundwater is being cleaned up by natural processes, said EPA project manager Eugene Dennis. "No deep groundwater wells need to be installed at the site," Dennis said.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to dig up to 12 test wells in Palmerton starting in January, despite continued protest from some residents and borough officials. Testing of some 17 existing wells at the former Zinc Company of America plant on the east side of the borough will happen in mid-December, with an eye toward digging the new wells in the same area in late January, said Eugene Dennis, who's heading up the project for the EPA. All that's left is to finish up the plans and gain agency approval, Dennis said.

By Sarah Fulton Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | November 20, 2008

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to test roughly 800 residential wells in North Whitehall Township for possible lead contamination, officials announced to about 70 residents at the board of supervisors meeting Wednesday. The wells in the former Mohr Orchard site and neighboring orchard properties -- on more than 1,300 acres -- will be sampled and tested for various heavy metals, including lead, which has shown up in preliminary tests. The EPA action level for the area, which ranges from Kernsville to Schnecksville, is 11 parts per billion.

State labs testing about 20 private wells near the defunct Hidden Valley landfill in Nockamixon Township will be looking for highly toxic benzene in addition to iron and ammonia. Benzene, a known carcinogen, and four other organic compounds were detected in tiny amounts in the leachate being discharged into a tributary of Gallows Run creek by the county-owned landfill, said Dennis Harney, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. "There are five organic materials that we detected in the sample, but they are well below human health criteria," Harney said.

The Bucks County Health Department has agreed to test for contaminants in about 20 private wells in the vicinity of a defunct county-owned landfill on Route 611 in Nockamixon Township. The former Hidden Valley landfill, purchased by the county decades ago after it had been closed, is west of Route 611 between the villages of Revere and Ferndale, near the Bucks County Horse Park. State regulators sent the county a violation notice in December after leachate -- the liquid produced when rainwater flows through the contents of a landfill -- discharged into a tributary of Gallows Run creek showed higher levels of ammonia, organic material and suspended solids than permitted.

Quakertown's water is virtually the same as it's always been, but a tightening of federal restrictions means it's now officially violating standards for the carcinogen arsenic. A public water well near S. Main Street was recently found to have average arsenic levels at 11 parts per billion -- 1 part per billion above the new federal standard and 39 parts per billion below the safety standard enforced until this year. While arsenic is believed to cause certain types of cancer and other ailments after prolonged exposure, officials say this violation doesn't pose an immediate public health threat.

Cindy Easton woke up Sunday, poured a cup of water from the spigot in her Towamensing Township home, took a sip, and spit it out. The water, she said, had a bitter taste and smelled like paint. Easton is concerned that paint, pesticides or other material stored at Country Junction, a huge general store next to her property that was destroyed by a fire last week, has seeped into the water table and is coming through her well. So Easton complained to the state Department of Environmental Protection, which did tests Wednesday and is analyzing the results and should know in several days whether Easton's well is contaminated.

Residents of Harmony Township, N.J., got an apology Tuesday night from PPL Corp. for the fly-ash spill into the Delaware River late last month, but many remained skeptical and pressed the utility for more information and a cleanup plan. "We apologize for this event. We did not meet our corporate or personal commitment to you or to the environment, and we plan to make things right," PPL Generation President Bryce L. Shriver told about 60 people packed into the Warren County community's meeting room off Route 519. Harmony is across the river from Lower Mount Bethel Township, where PPL's Martins Creek coal-fired power plant and its 40-acre fly-ash basin are. PPL on Tuesday said studies show about 100 million gallons of water, not the previous estimate of at least 60 million gallons, escaped from the basin.

By Sarah Fulton Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | December 16, 2004

Tamaqua Area School Board agreed Tuesday to pay an environmental firm $21,000 to test water and write a final report on a January 2003 oil spill in the basement of Tamaqua Area Middle School. Water testing, soil borings, legal fees and investigation of the spill have cost the district about $300,000 so far, Superintendent Frederick Bausch said Wednesday. The district in 2003 hired CBA Environmental of Hegins, Schuylkill County, to find and clean up an unknown amount of oil that was released from a heating oil tank when the tank's refilling mechanism failed to turn off. Officials have blamed the spill on a malfunctioning emergency generator.

The Department of Environmental Protection has backed off plans to bar the public from a meeting Thursday to discuss its plan to dig test wells in Palmerton. The meeting had previously been restricted to members of the groundwater committee --borough officials, state and federal environmental agencies and citizen organizations -- but will now be open to all who show up. "I was mistaken," said Dave Polish, an EPA spokesman who was involved in the decision to close the meeting. The meeting, to be held at the Bethlehem office of the Department of Environmental Protection at 9 a.m., will focus on organizing the committee in preparation of a yet-unscheduled public meeting concerning the test wells, said Bill McDonnell, director of DEP's Northeast Regional Office and the chairman of the groundwater committee.

To the Editor: The June 17 story about Hellertown borough council's failure to get any buyers for the city dump property called the "farm estate" was timely as it appeared on the sane day as a story concerning spilled oil at Saucon Valley High School. The residents of Springtown Hill Road are concerned that the former dump on the Hellertown property has harmful chemicals and other debris byproducts that someday will leak and migrate, as the oil is doing at the school ground. The article quotes Hellertown solicitor David Backenstoe as saying the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has made tests that showed no contamination.

The Bath Water and Sewer Authority will dig a new well to provide water to the proposed Arcadia East Industrial Park in East Allen Township. Borough Council on Monday gave the authority permission to drill the test well about 12 feet from the rest rooms in the southwest corner of Cowling Park on S. Walnut Street. Last year the authority got the go-ahead to drill three test wells, but now has opted for a site that authority Chairman George Gasper told council has "very high potential."

By Nancy Williams Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | January 15, 2003

Nockamixon Township residents who attended a state hearing Tuesday night agree that soil should be removed from the contaminated Arrow Carting Landfill. But some of the 35 people were concerned that the site needs further testing to determine if the groundwater is tainted. The hearing was held by representatives of the state Department of Environmental Protection to get residents' comments on a $130,000 plan to clean up heavy metal contamination at the landfill on Perry Auger Road.